A Home Is Not A House
by The Black Sun's Daughter
Summary: Family doesn't always end with blood, and a home isn't always a house. Just like the team is more than just a team, and the ARC is more than just a place to work.
1. A Safe Haven

Nick shut himself in his office – he had an actual bloody _office_ here, good God – and slid down the wall to sit on the floor, forcing himself to breathe slowly and steadily despite the fact that he felt like either ripping out his own hair or running for the door screaming. Neither were options at this point, so he bowed his head forward between his knees and made his lungs work.

He'd done something to change history. Claudia Brown was gone. Oh, God, what had he done? Everything was wrong. He could almost _feel_ it, like the earth had slid apart and then come back together, except all the pieces didn't quite line up like they had before. Claudia Brown... He touched his fingertips to his mouth, remembering the pressure of her lips on his. She was _real,_ she _had_ to be. He couldn't just imagine a _person,_ especially not a person like her. He wasn't mad. Hopefully. Maybe. He let out a low moan and thumped his head back against the wall.

The door whispered, but he didn't bother looking up, at least not until a quiet, familiar, and absolutely loathsome voice murmured, "Nick? You alright?" Stephen stepped into the office and shut the door. "Nick?"

It seemed childish to give him the finger, so he didn't. Was that a sign of maturity? Felt like it. "Bugger off." Alright, maybe not _that_ mature.

Stephen didn't bugger off. Bastard was always too bloody stubborn for his own good. "Cutter, everyone's gone home. You've been sitting in here for hours," he said in a gentler voice than Nick had heard him use for a long time. "You ought to go home."

Surprised, he glanced at his watch, and Stephen, adulterous arsehole, was right. It was nearing midnight. But the idea of going home was terrifying all in its own right. Jesus, did he even live in the same house? Or would he be stuck wandering around like a vagrant? He didn't know what else had changed. Fuck, for all he knew, he could walk outside and see a sodding flying car. His head hurt. "No," he answered. "Can't."

The cheating prick raised an eyebrow. "Can't or won't?"

 _Can't,_ Nick thought. _Won't. Both. Fuck off, would you, I'm trying to have a breakdown in peace._ The idea of leaving this place, this...ARC, was suddenly the worst possible idea in the history of ideas. Right up there with letting a bunch of idiot boffins play around with rips in the fabric of space-time and the evolution of history. This building, this place was completely foreign to him, and yet somehow, he was scared to leave it, to walk out of the climate-controlled interior into a world that had suddenly become as mysterious and as terrifying as the monster under the bed. Maybe that was cowardly, but he didn't particularly care. He'd just changed history and erased someone from the present, he was allowed to be a bloody coward for a moment.

"Cutter?" Stephen repeated, concerned by the lack of response.

"I said, bugger off. I'm not leaving." Not until he felt like he could stand without vomiting or could look outside without having a panic attack. This was _his_ office. Even if it hadn't existed to him before today, it was still his sodding office, and he wasn't going to leave this place. "The ARC," he murmured under his breath, turning the name over in his mind, looking up at the ceiling of this strange place that had somehow become safe haven. Christ, his life was buggered.

"Anomaly Research Centre," his oldest friend and newest enemy supplied, as if he wasn't certain that Nick remembered what it was called. He'd apparently given up on coaxing Nick out of the office and was sitting on the floor with him, maintaining a careful safe distance to ensure he was out of reach of a sudden punch or kick. "Connor came up with it. I think he just wanted the chance to say that we're taking creatures to the ARC, and not _'that'_ one."

Nick actually laughed. Call it a miracle.


	2. A Place to (Not) Hide

Connor wasn't hiding. He _wasn't._ He was just...making a tactical retreat. Yeah, that's what it was. In an air duct. Because that was totally normal. Yep.

With a sigh, he laid his head down on the cool metal, hands clasped over the back of his neck. Caroline and Abby had gotten into it again, and he had made a break for it as soon as the claws came out. Why did birds always have to make things so bloody _difficult_ all the time? He didn't get it. He would've thought that Abby would be happy that he got a girlfriend as much as she snapped at him for trying to flirt. She'd already made it abundantly clear that he had a snowflake's chance in hell with her, so what had her knickers in a twist?

He wriggled forward on his belly until he could look down through the grate at the lab that he was currently above. He'd told Cutter and Stephen once that he got claustrophobia, which was kind of true. He did freak out in small spaces, but only if he didn't know how to get out of them. Air ducts didn't scare him; he liked them. It was quiet and cool and nobody ever bothered him in them. By his third day in the ARC, he'd memorized the entire air system.

He couldn't not-hide at the flat, and he and Duncan still weren't on speaking terms after –

Wincing, he shied away from the memory of Tom, not feeling up to rubbing salt in that particular wound today. Either way, he didn't have a bolt-hole to not-hide in anymore, so that only left him with the ARC. Which was actually the coolest place to not-hide _ever,_ because the whole building was full of little nooks and crannies, just like _Serenity._ He wasn't anywhere near as smart or as badass as River, but he could still find a good place to...not-hide. Because he wasn't hiding. Nope.

Sometimes it felt like he had a lot to not-hide from. Between Abby and her snarling, snapping temper, Cutter potentially losing his marbles, Stephen being sulky and hurt after the whole thing with Helen (that still made his stomach roll, that thought), there was a lot going on that he had absolutely no idea what to do with. Connor hated feeling that way. He didn't like not-hiding from things, he liked to _help._ But he couldn't very much help stubborn-arsed people that either wouldn't let him or didn't want him to help.

He looked back through the grate again, watching the techs scurry around, like busy little ants in white coats. Lucky buggers. They didn't have to worry about not-hiding from their girlfriends or their flatmates fighting like angry cats in a bag, or from irate professors with a stubborn streak a kilometre wide and a mean right hook, or from trackers trying so hard to act like nothing bothered him when he was hurting so much it made Connor ache.

Closing his eyes for a moment, he laid his head down on the cool metal, wishing that the ARC was like the _Serenity,_ and he could just take a shuttle, fly off, and come back after everyone pulled their heads out of their collective arses.

The AC kicked on, and he felt the breeze ruffle his hair and his clothes. He heard the sound of Cutter's thick burr demanding to know 'where the bloody hell Temple was' and opened his eyes, looking down to see a familiar set of shoulders in a faded military coat and a shaggy mess of red-gold hair. He let out a quiet sigh.

As much as he wanted to, he couldn't not-hide up here all day. Connor started crawling back the way he'd come, towards another lab that he knew was always empty and he could drop down onto one of the desks from the ceiling. He didn't want anybody else to know that he spent so much time in the ARC's air system. Lester would probably find a way to make him leave, and he wouldn't have a bolt-hole anymore.

Maybe the ARC wasn't the _Serenity,_ but it was still a pretty good place to...not-hide.

Because he wasn't hiding.


	3. A Comfort

Jenny strode into one of the empty labs and shut the door a little harder than was strictly necessary, dropping into a chair just as the tears that'd been threatening spilled over her lashes. That stupid, stubborn, selfish... _man!_ Trying to put up with Cutter after what happened in Leek's menagerie was liable to make her go prematurely grey. She knew that he was in pain over losing Stephen, but he wasn't the only person grieving, that bastard. She covered her face with both hands and barely repressed a sob.

"Jenny?"

She let out a startled squeak, jumping halfway out of her skin at the disembodied sound of Connor's voice...just before the air vent slid back, and he poked his head through the hole. "Jesus, what are you doing up there?" she gasped, turning her face away and hastily wiping the tears off her face, though her mascara was beyond saving at this point.

"Never mind me. Why are you crying? Are you okay?" He dropped down to the desk below the vent lightly and jumped down to sit in the chair next to her.

Jenny shook her head, still trying to act like she was alright, but when Connor placed a gentle hand against her shoulder, the hesitant, sweet, kind gesture all but broke her heart. Leaning against his side, she let out a soft sob, admitting the latest round of hateful things that Cutter had thrown at her like knives. Usually, the words of one stubborn old boffin didn't bother her, but when brought in conjunction with everything else happening, she'd finally cracked. Connor didn't say anything as she spoke, only stroked her hair and rubbed gentle circles on her back with one hand.

Finally, when the tears ebbed, Jenny sat up and brushed at her damp cheeks, ashamed of losing her composure so completely. "I'm sorry for falling apart like that, Connor. You don't need to hear my problems, I'm sure," she mumbled thickly.

"Y'know, I kinda like it," he said, but there was none of that usual smug pride that usually came from a man that'd comforted a vulnerable woman. To her everlasting surprise, Connor produced a handkerchief from the pocket of his waistcoat and dried off her cheeks like she was a child. "I've been a big brother most of my life," he said, which she hadn't known. She was staring to realise that she knew very little about him. "I'm the oldest, so being a brother is probably the one thing I know that I'm good at. Like, _actually_ good at. I like it. The...giving advice, being the shoulder to cry on, offering to hit the bloke in question even if he is significantly bigger than I am."

She quashed a fresh wave of tears with a weak, watery giggle. She'd never had a brother, but she was starting to very fiercely envy Connor's sisters.

"I _will_ hit him, if you think it'll help. But only if you promise to say good at my funeral, too," Connor offered, and she giggled again at the mental image of him challenging his own professor to a round of fisticuffs in the atrium. He pressed the handkerchief into her hand. "Here, wipe your nose."

Jenny wiped at her nose, knowing she had to look a complete fright but feeling unreasonably comforted either way. With a sigh, she leant against his shoulder, and he slid an arm around her back as if she had every right to lean on him and cry on his shoulder. "How is it that you can be the most perfect sort of gentleman with me, and yet the moment you get within ten feet of Abby, you instantly swallow both of your feet?" she asked and felt more than heard him chuckle.

"Because I'm talking to you like I talk to my sisters, pet. I'm good at being a brother. It comes naturally. But Abby...I want her to _like_ me. I don't want her to be like my sisters at all." Connor rubbed a hand up and down her back. _"Do_ I need to hit him?"

Jenny laughed and shook her head. "No. Thank you, though. I mean it."

He retracted his arm and stood up, straightening out his clothes. She hadn't ever noticed that he was taller than she was before. "Alright, I'm gonna get back to the ADD before Lester blows a gasket or something. But, if you ever wanna talk, Jenny, you can always come see me. I'm a right idiot, but I know how to be a brother."

"You're not an idiot, Connor," she corrected gently, reaching out to touch his wrist. "And you are a very good brother."

He blushed a little, shifting his weight, and then he utterly shocked her by leaning forward and hugging her tightly, then pressing a kiss to her temple. "Take care of yourself, Jenny. And my offer still stands," he added before walking to the door.

Jenny waited until he had one hand on the door, then looked down at the handkerchief still clasped in her fingers and called, "Connor, why were you in the air vents? Were you hiding from him, too?"

He turned back to give her a small, brittle smile. "I don't hide. I was...pondering."


	4. A Happy Place

_"Daniel Christopher Quinn!"_

The ginger in question looked up with mouth agape. "How the bloody hell does she know me middle name?" he asked no one in particular at the sound of Jenny's virulent shriek.

"Connor," Becker answered, completely blasé, as if this was a common occurrence. "Connor knows everything about everyone. He regularly hacks the CCTVs and our CVs just so he'll have something to do between anomalies." The captain looked over the top of the Mossberg he was fastidiously cleaning at Danny. "What'd you do to earn a middle name?"

"Uhm...I may or may not have...tastefully redecorated her office when she was at that budget meeting with Lester."

Becker's eyebrows flirted with his hairline. "Tastefully redecorated," he repeated, then shook his head. "You're a dead man. I'll say good at your funeral and make a toast in your name with the good whisky."

Danny only partially faked his wince as he peered through the window to see Jenny Lewis striding down the ramp like a woman on a mission, her heels rapping out a sharp staccato on the concrete flooring. It was only a bit of fun. He really hadn't thought that she would be so upset. Hell, it was _April Fools' Day._ Surely she got that by now?

People in this place were entirely too serious. Danny knew it was because they'd seen too many teammates die in the past several months, but that was largely why he tried to get a rise out of them all the time. He couldn't just leave them to stew in their miseries. He'd lost people in his life, too, and he knew from personal experience that brooding and picking at the scab never helped, only made the injury more inflamed and painful. It'd taken him years to fully appreciate it, but laughter was the best medicine.

And there was a running bet that he could make the guv crack a smile before June.

He ducked beneath the window when Jenny turned in the direction of the armoury, but too late. She'd spotted him. "Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck. Becker, hide me!" he hissed as the sharp _click-click_ of his imminent death approached.

"No, thank you, I like my hide just the way it is. And I've got a front row view to the show."

"Oh, you poncy bastard..."

The door slammed open so hard that it bounced off the wall behind it and nearly snapped right back shut, if not for the red-manicured hand holding it open. Jenny Lewis turned to face Danny, currently trying to make himself invisible beneath a table. "Quinn, get your stupid ginger arse right out here right now before I drag you out by your bollocks!" she barked in a whip-crack voice that said she had better be obeyed _now._

"I never pegged you for the kinky type, Jen, but just so you know, my safe word's apples – _ow!"_ The copper's attempt at humour soon died into pained yelps as Jenny strode over, reached beneath the table, and seized one of his ears, making good on her word to drag him out from beneath the table. "Ow, ow, fuckity ow, woman, that's bloody well attached!" he yelped.

"You are going to put my office right back the way it was, Danny Quinn," the dark-haired woman ordered, giving his ear another tug. "Or I swear on everything holy, I'll have you scrubbing out the loos with your _teeth."_

Becker had quietly taken out his mobile and was recording the whole thing for posterity – a grown man being led off by the ear, whimpering in pain as his boss gave him a well-deserved tongue-lashing and a steady stream of threats.

"I love this job," he sighed happily.


	5. A New Start

Emily sat down gingerly on the end of the bed that was, for the time being, hers. She felt very...odd. Yes, odd was a suitable word. As if her world had somehow adjusted itself upon its axis without first giving her fair warning, and her sense of equilibrium had consequently unbalanced.

She had been wandering through the gateways for months now, with Charlotte and Ethan and the others of their tribe, and yet she never would have imagined that she would ever end up in a place as strange and as wondrous as this one. And it was now apparently to be her home. Permanently, if a gateway to her own time never resurfaced.

Looking down at her lap, she twined her fingers and twisted the wedding band upon her left hand. Whilst she could very easily see herself going the rest of her life without ever laying eyes upon Henry Merchant again...how could she stay here? How could she ever hope to integrate herself into a society where the things that she considered to be proper and right, ingrained in her since birth, were now considered the outdated, antiquated beliefs of a bygone era? How could she hope to fit into this strange and baffling time? In her own time, she was called rebellious, too outspoken and free-thinking for her own good, and it was often said that she needed the firm guidance of a man to remind her of her place in the world. But now she was called uptight, and the idea that her actions needed be dictated by a man was laughable to say the very least.

Emily lowered her head with a sigh, shoulders sagging as she slouched in a most unladylike manner. At least she would never have to suffer through wearing corsets and petticoats again, torture cleverly disguised as propriety. Women could even wear trousers now, and oh, what her mother would say if she ever saw Emily in a pair.

She couldn't possibly stay...but where else could she go? Those of the ARC would not allow her to simply walk out of the door and risk revealing the secret of the gateways to others. And even if they did, she had no prospects here. She couldn't survive in these environs, and it was a sickeningly helpless feeling that made her stomach turn. She pressed one hand over her eyes, wishing that when she took her hand away, she would be back amongst the tribe, Charlotte would still be living, and Ethan would not be completely mad with his own grief.

Instead, a light knock on the door made her startle and let out a most undignified yelp. "Enter," she called after a moment's pause, composing herself.

The door cracked open, and it was Matthew who stood on the other side. "May I come in, Emily?" he asked courteously, standing outside of the doorway with hands clasped behind his back. Were he dressed differently, he would very much resemble one of the young gentlemen who came asking for dances at the Autumn Ball.

"You may," she agreed.

He came in; after a moment's contemplation, he moved to sit on the end of the bed next to her, though not so close as to touch. "Emily..." He paused, a crease appearing between his brows. "I know that this has to be difficult for you, and I'm sorry. I hate keeping you here like a prisoner, but I hope you understand why we have to do this."

"I would undoubtedly get into a great deal of trouble outside these walls than I would within them," Emily offered.

He winced slightly but nodded. "That's the general idea, aye. But, listen, I've been speaking with Lester." He didn't mention Burton, and she was grateful for it. "The odds of an anomaly leading back to your time aren't exactly in your favour, so you'll likely have to stay here. So...if you wouldn't mind, I'd like to help you. Adjusting to a change like this seems impossible, I know, but – "

 _"Do_ you know, Matthew?" she asked softly.

To her surprise, he reached out and laid his hand over hers. "More than you might imagine. And it's just Matt. And trying to adapt to this place does look impossible, but it can be done. If you allow us to help you, of course. And we will, all of us. Even Becker."

Emily took a deep breath and let it out slowly, then looked around the small room in the ARC. If it was to be her home for now, then she may very well make the best of it. The others were willing to teach her, and perhaps with their assistance, she would not be trapped for long. She could adapt. She had done so before, and in far worse conditions than this. Suddenly, the idea of learning this strange new world, where she could be her own person without the need for a husband or a father to tell her how to live, did not seem quite so terrifying as it had before.

Turning her head, she offered him a small smile. "I believe that I will take you up on that offer...Matt."


End file.
